the hatter and the toy maker
by raven's cloak
Summary: the mad hatter tells his life story to absolem the caterpillar
1. Chapter 1

The woods where pitch black and so foggy that it was impossible to see much farther than a few feet in any direction. But from this fog there appeared a man; tall, looking very glum, and stranger than any other man in any world. His shoulders where slumped and his face was covered in ashes. As he dragged his feet forward, his hands, drooped at his side, swung gently and just as slowly as his dragging feet."Why the long face?" a voice murmured near the man's left man did not bother to turn to the speaker but sighed a long, melancholy sigh. "Absolem, go away, I do not wish to speak with you.""Such a boring response," Absolem murmured, inhaling deeply from his pipe, and then exhaling a fume of colors. "I would expect something… a bit more eccentric from you. You are after all known for your madness.""I am now" the man said, "but I wasn't always.""Well pray then, why don't you tell me about what is troubling you, surely it can't be that trait which gave you your name?" Absolem put the pipe in his mouth again and puffed little clouds into the air, clouds of all the colors of the rainbow, which swirled upward and paused briefly above the Hatter's head before drifting away into the Hatter hesitated a second before taking a seat atop a bright orange mushroom. "I wasn't always mad, and I wasn't always a hatter either. Once upon a time I was a toy maker in a world far, far, away from here. A world where wonderland was impossible, and where I was not mad at all."


	2. Chapter 2

"There is a world far from this one, and in certain rare occations, a lucky soul happens to find their way out of that world and into this one." The hatter began, pondering on how to tell his story.

"Like Alice, last year" Absolem said, recalling the little girl who had crossed to wonderland.

"Precisely!" the hatter exclaimed.

"but how does this pertain to your sadness?" Absolem wondered, puffing colorful smoke into the hatter's face.

"Well in that world, the one from which Alice came from, there lived a boy named Jack who was very creative and crafty. His father encouraged Jack's creativity and bought him some cloth, wood, and a number of other materials, hoping that Jack would learn to make clothes and someday make a living for himself as a tailor. But Jack was not interested in making clothing, and he was very lonely, so he made for himself a rabbit, a perfectly white stuffed rabbit. His father was enraged at Jack's use for his materials and reached for the rabbit, meaning to destroy it, but to everyone's amazement, the rabbit jumped to life, snatched the father's pocket watch and hopped away.

Later, Jack made a doll queen, with hearts on her dress, and a series of card soldiers for the queen to protect her castle. But the boy sewed the queen's smile on crooked so instead of looking happy, the queen seemed to smirk in an awful way. Once Jack had finished making the queen and her soldiers, they too came to life and ran away, like the rabbit. Creature after creature toy after toy disappeared as soon as it was finished. Eventually, the boy grew up and opened a toy store full of magnificent toys, but they no longer came to life. Children came and purchased his toys but his toys remained still. People remarked how beautiful and life-like the toys where but the toys where never alive.

Sad that his creations where no longer magical, Jack decided to make something that he was sure would never come to life, so he wouldn't be disappointed when it stayed lifeless like all the toys at his store. He closed down his toy store and opened a hat business.

Just like his toys, his hats where astonishing and people came from all over England and even other countries as well just to buy his hats. Years passed and he grew content with his business, or so he kept telling himself over and over, because Jack still longed to see his toys come to life like they had as a child. So behind his hat shop, he built another toy store. His toys where magnificent but still they did not come to life.

One day, a widow walked in the hat shop with her daughter, a little girl only a couple years old. The widow stood by the hat display picking out a hat and meanwhile, I showed the little girl a doll so the widow could pick out a hat in peace. She never did pick out a hat, but after that day she came often to the store.

We would talk on lazy afternoons when my shop wasn't too busy with customers. Years passed and I fell in love with the widow, whose name was Margaret. Yet some more years passed and eventually, I married Margaret. We were very happy just the three of us, and later, we had a daughter, Alice. Our lives where perfect, but as all perfect things, one day they must all end.


	3. Chapter 3

Something peculiar began to happen, my magic had begun to return. Ofcourse my hats never came to life, but they began to do some very magical things. Once a woman came to my shop and tried on a hat. Immediately she began to grow very thin and tall, like the world's largest pencil. She continued to grow and grow until eventually, she slammed her head into the seiling. I had to climb up on a ladder and take the hat off her head so she would shrink back to her original size. Another time, A man came into my shop and tried on a top hat with flowers on the top. The flowers begin to swirl like helicopters and the hat, man and all, began to rise. I held on tight to his foot so that he wouldn't be carried out of the shop. A number of other incidents occurred, until I lost costumers. At last, I was forced to close down my shop, but before I did, I made one last hat for myself, so that I would remember my hat shop days.

This hat was the most magnificent hat I had ever made. It was quite ordinary in appearance, but when I finished my hat, I was swirled into another world a world that would later become known as wonderland.

I was trapped in wonderland for many years. Ofcourse at first I thought it was wonderful, every creature in this land was one of my childhood creations; talking flowers, toast butterflies, flying rocking horses, the queen of hearts with her suit knights, the door mouse, and even the rabbit with my father's stolen watch where in this land. Then I realized that there was no way out of wonderland. I tried everything, I tried getting my hat to take me back home, I walked across every inch of wonderland looking for a way out. When that didn't work, I made new hats, hundreds and hundreds of hats, but none of them could take me back home.

Just when I thought there was no way of going home, the rabbit appeared to me and, tapping my father's watch grumbled, "Isn't it about time you get to where you need to go?"

"But I don't know how to get there" I protested.

"it seems to me that there's always a door to every destination" the rabbit said swinging the pocket watch by its chain over the rocky ground, which began crumble under my feet and I found myself falling into the ground. I thought I was falling for hours and at the bottom, there was a door. I went through the door and found myself across the street from where I used to live before my time in wonderland. There was my house, and through a window, there where my daughters, and on the porch, there was Margaret, but she wasn't my Margaret, not any more. She was sitting next to another man, embracing him. I had been gone for too long and my Margaret was lost.

Soundlessly, I crawled back into the hole where I'd popped up and made my way back to wonderland. Bck in wonderland, I made myself a cabin, and shut myself in dedicating my time to making hats, hats which I intentionally always left unfinished so they would never come to life.


	4. Chapter 4

It was late afternoon one day and I decided to head out to find something to eat in the woods. Out of the blue, a cat appeared; a bright blue cat with enormous eyes. I recognized the cat as one of the toys I had made when I was young.

"Cheshire?" I asked even though I knew I had guessed correctly.

"That is right, I am Cheshire the cat, and you will lose your head if you don't get out of here now."

"What do you mean lose my head? I won't lose my head, plus I have nowhere else to go, I can't get out of here." I protested. I was angry that my own creation would kick me out of my own home, but then I heard a trumpet, and thousands upon thousands of footsteps.

"Oh my, I guess I'm a bit too late to help you now!" Cheshire said as he disappeared right before my eyes.

But I didn't have time to ponder on the cat's getaway because at that moment, a multitude of card soldiers appeared on the forest trail. I ran as fast as I could to my cabin and grabbed my hat, the one that had brought me to wonderland. Still cards came faster so I sprinted deeper and deeper into an even darker part of the forest, holding on to my hat so it wouldn't fly off the top of my head.

No matter how fast I ran, the cards where still pursuing at my heels. I found myself in a labyrinth so I dashed inside hoping that the cards would get lost, but when they didn't, and instead I got lost, the cards surrounded me, wrenched my arms behind my back and marched me deeper into the labyrinth.

At the center of the labyrinth was the biggest castle I had ever set eyes on. The castle was light pink except for the roof, which had white shingles and the doors and windows, which where all red and shaped like hearts. The cards took me inside the castle and into some sort of a throne room where a fat, short woman sat. I recognized the woman immediately. I remembered how I had sewn her smile on wrong when I had been a boy and how it had appeared like the doll had been frowning. Now, the woman sitting on her thrown definitely wasn't smiling. She pursed her lips when she saw me.


End file.
